Share
Tweet
Email
By Marshall Pruett - May 29, 2025, 11:30 AM EDT

Hunter-Reay on wild ride at Indy: ‘The stuff dreams are made of’

and we F'ed ourselves by not bringing an extra car...

“I have never been so mentally and emotionally exhausted.”

That was Ryan Hunter-Reay’s take on the three-day whirlwind experience of having his primary Indy 500 car catch fire last Friday on Carb Day, watching his crew work for more than 24 hours straight to replace the burned car with a beaten-up backup to test on Saturday, and racing into the lead for 48 of the 200 laps on Sunday at the Indianapolis 500.

Unfortunately, the FOX broadcast missed the amazing comeback story as it played out with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports, the smallest team in the IndyCar Series, the last of its kind as an Indy 500-only participant, as it came within a few sips of fuel from being in the mix to win "The Greatest Spectacle In Racing."

But leave it to the 2012 IndyCar Series champion and 2014 Indy 500 winner to fix the oversight and take us on a fascinating and winding tale of how the biggest underdogs at the biggest sporting event in the world almost pulled off the upset of the century.

“Somehow we managed to experience the full spectrum of emotions that Indy can offer,” the 44-year-old Hunter-Reay told RACER. “But this is a unique story because just a month ago, I was in the shop doing pit stop practice in this car that had an improvised electric motor in it, and the guys were just pounding on it, doing pit stops – the team worked so hard on their stops, and they were so good on that side of it in the race. It really paid off.

“Obviously, the race car caught fire. Damaged the tub. I was hoping and praying it wasn't damaged, but it was. It compromised the structure where the engine meets the tub. And I'll never forget seeing the old pit stop car, all-white car, get lowered off the lift of the DRR transporter as I went by after some media thing at the track.

Hunter-Reay took DRR from a frantic to rebuild to leading the Indy 500. Joe Skibinski/IMS Photo“I didn't know anything about the car – nothing – just that it was a beater pit stop practice car. I jokingly said to the guys that were lowering it, ‘Well, that's definitely not our new race car.’ They looked back at me kind of puzzled because it was! And that thing, what, 20, maybe 24 hours after they built it, turned the second-fastest lap in the Indy 500 and led the second-most laps. Absolutely wild.”

The ending of the story is a painful one to get out of the way up front. Called into the pits on the 169th lap while leading, Hunter-Reay’s No. 23 DRR/Cusick Chevy exhausted its fuel supply as it rolled into the pit box. In the realm of hindsight where perfect decisions are made, the call to come in for fresh tires and refueling would have been delivered on the 168th lap.

But Hunter-Reay’s turbocharged motor was starved of fuel – to the point where it stalled and wouldn’t refire – as all of the precious liquid that mixes with air and combusts inside the cylinder walls was burned while traveling the final distance to reach the No. 23’s pit crew. It was here where the TV cameras finally found the car that led 49 of the opening 168 laps, on pit lane, as the car stalled and as the crew plugged in the remote starter to try and prime the fuel lines and get the motor to light.

Unable to get the engine to run properly with the new fuel placed in the tank, Hunter-Reay, team owner Dennis Reinbold, partner Don Cusick, their crew and their sponsors were crestfallen. The blue car returned to the box and sat in silence as the finals stage of the Indy 500 played on without its former race leader.